folie à deux

to love is to be subsumed

When I first lay eyes on him, the contours of his face are cast into sharp, unflattering relief by the harsh light and stale air of the hotel conference room. My eyes dart around each pore, each acne scar, before they take in the full, pleasing sweep of his face. But as soon as I really see him, I know he is The One. There is no great swell of sound, no grand flourish from the strings, no high soprano lilting about the power of love. Still, I feel something click into place inside of me. There you are, it seems to say. I've been waiting my whole life for you. 

Everything happens effortlessly after that. He, too, must know that we were made for each other. We fall into bed that evening, become exclusive by Sunday afternoon, reveal our long-term plans to each other in a slow, steady drip over coffee chats and cocktail hours before inevitably going back to his place. I develop an idea of what dresses he wants me to wear based on how much he seems to like taking similar ones off. When we become serious enough for him to take me along to eat dinners at nice restaurants with white tablecloths, he pays in full. I learn that we both want three children and a big house in the suburbs and maybe a golden retriever for the kids to play with. It is a perfectly respectable courtship for an upwardly-mobile woman.

But my favorite part comes at the end of each date, after we have exhausted all of the clearly delineated social scripts about romance. In the quiet dark of early morning, we talk about our deepest anxieties and hopes and fears until we fall asleep. I don’t have a lot to say, so I mostly listen to him speak. I like to hear his authoritative baritone and smile to myself when he executes a rhetorical flourish particularly well. I certainly know how to pick them. He had been a champion debater in college. He's always had a knack for backroom politics, a preternatural understanding of each potential action’s optics and consequences. He knows he was born to win something. I want to be a great man, he tells me, one who makes the world in his own image. 

I am utterly infatuated.

My life rearranges itself around him. I learn how to attend campaign fundraisers and apologetically cancel dinner plans with old friends to get to them on time. To shake hands with his bosses and coworkers and their wives and cousins. To write and edit a press release so fast it makes my head spin. To cook and plate a three-course dinner for eight without much notice. To demur when a situation demands that I do anything but be the smiling, supportive, placid woman. Eventually, I stop receiving other invitations to go out in the first place, and I can finally devote all of my evenings and weekends to him. He likes my performance, my dedication. It's enough to ask me to move in. I can't accept his offer fast enough. I bring over everything I have, jam in my clothes and books between his, and feel like our lives are knitting themselves together.

So it makes sense when our first argument happens. Months before we'd met, I'd applied for a position that wasn't quite my dream job but would put me on track to get it. It was in a city only a few hours away. And I wouldn't have done the same after I'd met him. After he saw me – wanted me – at the conference, even in my ugly, ill-fitted skirtsuit, I’d stopped applying for new positions in general. But my heart skips a beat when I see the full-time offer land delicately in my abandoned inbox. I feel that old flutter of ambition in my chest, and my pulse races and my face flushes and I can’t stop fantasizing. It’s pure limerance. 

I let myself imagine that we could make a new life together somewhere new. A place that is equally ours. My mind runs wild with the afterimages of our future: a bigger place, meant for a couple; two pairs of shoes curled next to each other; his cologne bottles mixed in between my cosmetics; him meeting me at my office with a massive, riotous bouquet of flowers, congratulating me on my promotion; wearing a matching blazer and pants purchased and tailored to fit me instead of making do; attending more of those dinners, but now as an accomplished partner instead of a limp prop. I want to spend forever in that world.

So I cook his favorite dinner that night and feel incandescent with possibility. I want him to see the inviting outlines of my vision, of what we could achieve together. When he comes home, everything is warm and soft and lovely. Our conversation flows freely. I pour generous glasses of his favorite wine for both of us to drink. His lips curve into a smile when I tell him I have a surprise planned. But as I explain everything, I watch his face freeze, and then I'm racing to get all of the words I want to say out in one great exhale. But his jaw sets and brow furrows even as I implore him to consider how we could grow together – what I could do for him. When I'm trying to wrap up everything with one last exhortation, one final burst of inspiration, he cuts in-

Can I even trust you?

Because, you see, he is rational. You are not. Let's be objective here – his future is more promising than yours. Why do you want to skip town when he's just become next in line to run the district office? Do you really think he can uproot himself so easily? Are you really this much of an idiot, or are you trying to get a rise out of him? Do you really think you're gonna keep producing mediocre articles that no one reads for the rest of your life? Do you want to make something of yourself? You let him go on and on and on, and it never feels like he will stop talking.

In your mind, you thumb through an internal catalog of all the other times you'd spoken a bit too freely at the endless parade of events he trots you out at. You think of the way his hands had tightened around your arm when you made a sharp remark. You think of how he pinched at your waist when you didn't smile widely enough. You think of when you learned to stop speaking unless spoken to. You realize he is doing the same thing, but he doesn't need to lay a finger on you for it to work anymore. 

You realize that he is right. He is The One. And you love him, don't you? Wouldn't you give anything to stay by his side? So why don't you prove it? Yes, call them now. I said now. You shouldn't care that they're off work already. Just do it. It’ll be the first thing they see on Monday morning. Doesn't this matter more to you? You feel something pool in your stomach as you leave a voicemail declining the offer. Your voice is not your own – it is smoothed out a bit too much to compensate for the trembling of your hands. There is no emotion in your tone. You are still reeling when he starts kissing down your neck with something you used to mistake for reverence.

But you want this, don't you? So act like it. There, was it that hard? Oh, come on, don't cry. You needed to do this. You're with me. You're safe. I’ll take care of you. You know how I love you. We’ll buy you a new dress tomorrow. I knew you were perfect for me when we met, I really did. I knew you could see reason. My beautiful, brilliant girl. I knew you would pick us over yourself. See? We were made for each other. 

by Paloma Sánchez Díaz

Remy: A Short Story

Tuesday 15th October 1985

Wickie Wackie Beach, St Andrews, Jamaica

The Earth’s breath was a tender warmth over the night fallen skies. Though hot with weariness, the air was relieved with lightened sighs from the sea, the ripples a rush, an echo among the ambient extravaganza ensuing behind Kamala’s back. She stood in silence, watching the soft tides flowing with ease into the shore, the luminous full moon reflected in the darkened water. A band played at the bar, a member urging spectators to gather around the makeshift dance floor, where the saxophone and bongos began a salsa number. Kamala sat on the stool behind the bar, ordering a fine rum punch. She ought to ease the depletion within her, for her father reprimanded her for rejecting a proposal. Indeed, she tried to lighten the heaviness within, still reeling from the loss of her mother, who had passed away six months prior, leaving her and her father to be deserted. The very father who very so stubbornly maintained his Indian traditions from when he was uprooted from India to work on the plantations in Jamaica by a British colonel. He decidedly settled down on the Island once he encountered Kamala’s mother, Jhanvi. In utter delight, he was to have found another Indian amidst the African descendants with whom he was cordial. With promptness, he married her, and though he lived in Jamaica for many decades, Kamala’s father, Laksh, upheld the Indian traditions and values which were sent down to him from his parents. For him, it was his way of staying connected and grounded to his ancestral roots. It was true that marriage held significance within the Indian household; it was believed that it protected the family’s honour and dignity while continuing to plant more seeds to enrich the Indian culture and heritage with future generations. Kamala believed marriage was simply the Indian’s way to cast their children aside once they had grown into maturity, especially women. It was presumed so when in witness of how children caused friction with their parents when they were adults, thus creating a clash in the hierarchy. It was deemed shameful for women to live alone or move away from home unmarried; thus, marriage was perceived as the way to maintain a woman’s dignity and honour. Certainly, Laksh pondered that it was Kamala’s time to marry and embark on a life of her own. The burden fell arduously over him now that Jhanvi had left them. He felt it to be his duty to set his daughter up with a decent man from a good family, assured that he would be reprieved and at peace once he settled his only child down in life. This had dejected Kamala; in vehemence, she declined such a proposition, for she believed it was in her fate to fall in love. She surmised that the person she fell in love with was the one she would be tied to in matrimony. To hear her father speak so callously of her life compelled her to tears, moving her to depart the house in an instant, upon which she found sound relief near the waters. In the bar, she mulled over the scene with the drink tipping on the edge of her fingers, her shoulders sagging as her head roamed among the heads of dancers.

His eyes were a darkened brown. Upon catching her in the crowd, they became fixated. The room zoned out of focus with a tunnel vision on her. He thought her to be a beautiful woman. During the course of the set, Remy and Kamala locked eyes, and once they had concluded, he set the saxophone down gently near the leg of the stool and with a charismatic smile, he approached her. When the bartender shouted, whether he craved a drink. Very kindly so, Remy said, “no, thank you, Darren.” In brazen confidence, he settled on the stool beside Kamala and said, “you’re beautiful.”

Kamala chugged the rest of the drink and shot back with sass, “is that what you say to all women?”

“No, only you.”

“Is that so?”

“Very much so.” In a fore, his hand drew to her border. Kamala took a gander at the hand with mild caution to look back up at him. He patiently awaited her move until she put her hand on him, and when she did, he firmly held onto it, caressing the back of her hand, enticed by the softness. “I’m Remy. What’s your name?” His lips edged close to her ear. Such a brass move from him had her mouth part, her breath shortening in pants. His proximity to her provoked a swell to expand in her womb, and her fingers tingled from Remy’s tender touch.

“Kamala.” Her voice was breathless. “My name is Kamala.”

Remy beheld her gaze, keenly regarding her eyes to have darkened. His face a reflection before him on the twinkle of her brown eyes. “Care for a dance?” He said, his blood pulsing unevenly upon her response to him.

She tightened her grip on his hand, her heart flogging her chest when her skin continued to sparkle from the touch of his. Indeed, she felt abnormal and feverish, for she hadn’t known such sensations to be. She pert her head in an indication of a yes, then he led the way into the dance floor, finding a small space in the middle. Though their set had finished, the members of the band played lastingly into the night. Remy had seen her before. She would sit near the waters, scarcely ever coming into the bar. Quite frankly, she intimidated Remy, which caused hesitation to sink into his bones in the manner of approaching her. He found her to be a wonder, her beauty to be a marvel. He knew how Indians perceived African descendants of the Island. Despite his many efforts to restrain himself and discard those feelings, he felt the gravitational pull towards her, and when her eyes caught his and sealed her gaze on him, he was assured that she felt something for him too. Such a sombre act was an indicator to him to go to her, and like tunnel vision indeed, he drew close.

With the brass and drums in play, the Caribbean night enlivened into gladdened elation. Remy pulled Kamala staunchly against his body; chest on chest, pelvic bone on pelvis, their breath a synthesis of a kiss with lips utterly inches away. With a hand on Kamala’s lower back, their hips began a rhythm in beat with the music. Kamala followed Remy’s lead; his feet shifted in a forward and backwards motion just as their hips moved to the music. With their fingers interlocked, Remy pushed Kamala down, her spine jolting in surprise, flutters swarming her stomach from his proximity to her. Their eyes fixed on one another. She felt his presence had enamoured her. Her heart rendered to a relentless throb pulsing in her chest while her teeth bit her bottom lip upon feeling the unsteady heartbeat of the man before her. Kamala leaned her head on his chest with her arms reaching over his shoulders to run her hands through his braids, binding her fingers behind his neck as they moved with the slow music. Remy’s face buried deeper into the curve of her neck, providing her reprieve from the heat of the night with his breath. He nipped her neck when she ground her arse on him. Soon after, she turned around, rather lethargically, bringing him closer. She was so close she saw the black irises of his dark brown eyes; her nose turned upwards for a brush of skin. She enjoyed the vision of his laughter, for he laughed with the entirety of his face, and such imagery warmed her heart. However, now the air was stiff between them with a mystification of thickened passion. She felt a delicious sensation twining around her bones when he tightened his grip on her body. An emotion so severe washed over her upon perceiving an expression of contemplation on his face.

“I’m going to make you my wife,” expressed Remy in severity, pressing his forehead to hers.

She thought such words would be revolting; however, a sense of serenity devoured her, and such a response to such frank words hadn’t scorned her to a scare. “Come to my home. Ask my Baba for my hand in marriage. Get with you trays of gifts; bridal clothes, jewels, and Indian sweets.” Kamala said in an airy voice, for she felt that she had entered another dimension with the one surely to be her one and only lover. 

by Kalina 

Sweeter Words.

I am cooking Indomie in my father’s home when an old memory begins to meet me where I am. A chilly summer in June - can’t remember the year - and I’m met with a sweet-smelling scent. Jude has just sat beside me, smiling and staring at my face without words. She always smelt like something sweet, almost fruity. It made me sick during colder months, but I couldn’t help but breathe it in along with the sweat and sun. Her lips are stretched wide and her cheeks are polished in a dusty pink that I am so taken aback by, and it causes me to smile too.

“What’s the grinning for?”

She waves me off, twisting and turning restlessly in her seat.

“There’s about to be a storm, babe. Better button up.”

I wasn’t sure what she was referring to then, but that night long after we separated, I came to a realization.

+

It was that night that the winds began a conversation.

Even now years after I feel as though I was creeping into something outside of my understanding.
The trees did well to scare me. Billowing wanes that brushed against the roofs of houses and telephone poles, trying desperately to enter and ruin. They knew I was listening. 

The curtains shuddered up and down, sideways and out, helplessly swept up by the breeze, lined with droplets of rain.

The trees stopped and started, gaining surge when you least expected it. It lagged and then picked up, providing the winds with an instrument, a body.

The rain began and my stomach turned. I could see bullets of water through the window, the rush of thousands blurring each droplet into half/visible pelts, coming down onto leaves only to be swiped away by the wind.

The dance was familiar now. A private encounter with nature, the drag and whisper of curtains, the tree’s song, and the rain. The pattern created itself.

by Ennie Fakoya

A Small Prayer

I look at the money in my hand and bite my lip as I enter the dress shop, hoping that fifteen dollars is enough to hang up my worries for a night. I haven’t stopped helping Mamí and Daddy with the bills, but I’ve put away every other cent I could, only allowing for bus money. I didn’t want a homemade dress or hand-me-down from Victoria this time. I’m not ungrateful for my belly full of blessed food, or the bed Daddy built with his carpenter’s hands, but I want to own something that’s mine in the shared closet of my shared room in this shared house packed with 13 siblings, Mamí, Daddy, Tío Rudolfo, and Momo Alma. I love mi familia, but this is a chance for something to be mine. 

Dress shopping is already hell. Dress shopping with three of my younger sisters when mosquitoes have shooed away the already sparse summer clouds, is worse than hell, it’s Texas. If the mosquitoes here aren’t blood-drunk around you, stomachs hanging low like sun-ripened peaches, you’re anemic. These hand fans did little to threaten these chupagente pests and even less to cool any of us down.

We’ve already been scared away from perusing the windows of two shops on Deleon Plaza and have had to head to the shops closer to the Guadalupe, closer to bloodsucker breeding grounds. 

“Tengo caloooor,” Sophie and Ninfa whine in unison.

“Por qué las tra–” Angela tries to ask why we brought our youngest sisters before she is interrupted.

“English!” A beady-eyed shopkeeper yells from his perch in the center of the store. He hasn’t taken his eyes off my sisters or me since we entered, but the only other clothing store that doesn’t have a “No Mexicans” sign in the window is a mile away. Besides, we have always bought clothes from Doña Rosaria, and she has sucked her teeth in disapproval of my figure ever since she tailored my confirmation dress. Poking and prodding at my growing chest and hips. I can swallow racism in lieu of a shame that has taught me the exact price of womanhood.

“Sorry sir, my sisters need new dresses so they can find husbands at the dance!” Ninfa giggles as she brushes off the shopkeeper’s hostility.

“Oh hush up Ninfa,” Ángela elbows Ninfa to reinforce her warning. “At least I’m allowed to go to the dance. Plus,” she sashays, punctuating her declaration with her confident hips. “Our husbands will be finding us.”

It isn’t Ninfa’s fault that my parents are more protective over their youngest babies than they were with us. The oldest seven of us left school in the third grade to accompany our father in the cornfields, peach groves, or strawberry fields depending on the season. By the time Joe came along, Daddy was working as a carpenter full-time, and Mamí swore she was done having children just to send them to the fields, fingers still stubby with youth. Carpentry doesn’t pay well, but it's more consistent than picking, and it meant we didn't have to travel with Daddy to find work anymore. We were allowed to return to school the following fall, but, the oldest of us, more accustomed to labor than schoolwork, chose the greater independence that accompanied jobs. 

Still, each of us kids was always free to roam when the sun did. We were. Until one day, Joe, the youngest and best of us, wasn't back for dinner. And when he wasn’t back at wash time, the oldest went out looking for him. We always tried to fiercely protect him because little Joey was like our baby too. It wasn’t like him to forget to call about being late or to miss Momo’s cooking.

With one hand Daddy stoically calmed Mamí as he dialed the police with the other.

“Well, what was he wearing?” asked the mustachioed officer.

Mamí bit her lip as Daddy looked away in shame.

“W-we don’t know. I helped my mom make lunch and my husband does work.” Mamí answered for both of them because her English was better. Ninfa helped translate any questions or important information.

For two days we didn’t give up looking for him, and for two days no one slept or ate. You could see in Daddy’s faraway gaze and Mamí wet eyes, that hope was waning. Every call, every knock could be the one to let us know that Joey was never coming back home.

On the third day, the knocks came. They found Joey in the Guadalupe River. Face-up and still clutching a toy in his hand. Still wearing his striped shirt and shorts with no signs of a struggle. Officers said he probably fell in the water and hit his head on a rock, but Momo said La Llorona saw how happy Joey was and wanted him for herself.

*******

Cornelio only sees the right world. A firework stole his left eye as a kid, and he’s lucky that’s all the capricious explosive took. This way, he can work at the shop with Estaquio, and I can see him whenever I bring Estaquio his bean and rice tacos straight from Momo’s stove and his drink straight from the icebox. But do I get fresh tacos and something cold to press against my neck as I work hard in the factory? No! Why? Because he is a “growing boy and works so hard, mijo deserves it.” Short answer? I am not a man.

“Llegas a casa antes de la luna.” I warn my brother in our native tongue before his white, sour-faced supervisor walks over, and I reflexively switch to English. “Daddy wants help with the radio before dinner. Gotta go, bye.”

I am usually so good at scurrying about undetected, but Sour Face was not doing paperwork in his office today. I turn into a deer mouse staring at the throat of a striking rattlesnake. Before I can turn to leave, I find myself bristling at the touch of the supervisor’s hands slithering around my backside. It is an open secret that no woman should be alone with him. Not me, not the wives of these working men, not their mothers or daughters. His sticky hands attract trouble, and no one can say anything, or men lose jobs and whispers haunt women around town.

“Sir,” Cornelio shoves a piece of metal into the supervisor’s face. “Does this piston look chipped to you?”

Sour Face huffs as his hand moves to push Cornelio away and Estaquio unclenches his fist from around the neck of his wrench. “Perez, this looks fine. Get back to work.”

Gracias, I mouth as I back out of the shop’s open garage door.

I appreciate so much about Cornelio. I appreciate the peace of his protection. I appreciate the deliberate way he meters his gaze. He knows how precious sight is and doesn’t want to waste it looking at noise. He doesn’t just see me, but it’s something more—he considers me. Like a cat studying a bird, not as prey, but because it wishes it could fly too. 

I can only see the left world. I lost my right eye to diabetes, too many servings of frijoles fried in grease and all the burnt bits of whatever meat Momo made the day before, or too much pan dulce, or too much of everything that makes life worth living. 

I’ve caught Cornelio’s glances before and returned respectable, close-mouthed smiles. Every look, a small seed planted, stalk taking root in my stomach, growing until I am all popcorn crunch heart, eager kernels waiting behind the silk of my lips. 

*******

“Aurora, will you be going to the dance at The Westerner on Saturday?” Cornelio interrupts my daydreams as I walk back home after work. “Valerio Longoria is visiting with his grupo y Benny told me the accordion player es excelente.” 

I look how I feel after a day of mixing and rolling masa. My baby hairs are vines crawling outward, and the rest of my hair is confined in a hairnet. A thin layer of vagrant flour covers every inch of my body, mixing with my sweat to form a sticky dough. 

I give Cornelio a deliberate nod. “Yes, I’ll be going with Ángela, and Estaquio is taking Lupe. We are all riding over together.” How lucky that Ángela and I have already bought our dresses. 

“Ah, bueno,” he rubs an oil-blackened hand on the nape of his already-splotched neck. Stubborn grease gathers in its creases. “I was thinking maybe you could save a dance for me if that’s alright with you?” He rubs his other hand on his stained cornflower blue mechanic’s jumpsuit. 

Though it takes a few seconds to register what he is asking, some part of me has the good sense to lick my gritty lips and speak. “¡Sí, sí, I would like that very much!” I answer, a bit louder than I meant to. 

Yet, his full-cob smile calms me.

“¡Bueno, bueno, muy bueno!” His hands clap in excitement, forming a prayer. “Then I will see you there, Aurorita.”

I do not feel butterflies in my stomach. Instead, something blossoms. I haven’t known that name, Little Aurora, since I was a child, but it doesn’t feel out of time or place fluttering out of his lips. 

Cornelio is a sturdy man, but he is not tough. Not all machismo and testosterone. He hasn’t had the goodness beaten out of him or chased away. He is hardworking, a good man like Daddy, and I could only hope for a man like Daddy. He shows his love for Mamí with actions, and what more should I want than a man who proves he loves me every day? 

*******

I had my Ángela brush out my hair just so to give it volume, and I asked Mamí if I could wear the earrings Daddy got her for their 15th anniversary.

“Ay, mija,” she cupped my face in her hands. “You do not have to try so hard, he is only a man.”

But, she brought out the wooden jewelry box Daddy built for her. As I touch the sanded-down edges, I remember how proud Daddy was of his little creation, confidently presenting Mamí with the box as she spread masa on damp corn husks.

“Geronima, it is not Navidad yet, pero I saw you looking at the velvet-lined one in the Sears catalog.”

With a flourish, he brought the box into her eyeline as I giggled into Mamí’s apron.

“Ay, Raymundo, it is better than the one in the catalog.” Mamí’s eyes twinkled as she touched the cloth liner. It wasn’t fancy, but it was borne out of love to be loved. 

“Now, Aurora,” Mamí said as she fastened the earrings, “if you lose these . . .” Her face darkened for a second. “Well, just don't.” She kisses my forehead and turns to Estaquio, “And you, you watch your sisters. Particularly, I do not want your little friend making a woman out Aurora or a grandmother out of me.” 

I gasped and felt my cheeks flush, but everyone else laughed, and Daddy shot me a cautionary glance. 

“Everyone, just be safe okay.” She gently studies Estaquio’s face in her hands and makes mental notes of our outfits, no doubt remembering sending Joey out with a quick, inattentive kiss for the last time. “Okay, okay, have fun.” Mamí pats his cheek and shoos us away with a dish rag.

And we did have fun. Cornelio and I danced all night, calloused hand in calloused hand. Ángela danced with her pick of handsome men. Estaquio's hands rested on the small of Lupe’s back, and I don't think I once saw his eyes leave her face except to share sweet kisses. Everyone was sweaty and puffing by the end of the night, but everyone was smiling. 

That night was the first dance of many for Cornelio and me. We danced at every dance we could. We danced all the way to going steady. Then, we danced all the way to swearing in front of Jesús y La Virgen to love each other in sickness and in health.

“This isn’t much, but with what I’ve saved up from the shop and your wages at El Rey, we’ll be able to afford a place of our own very soon. I promise you this,” my new husband assures me as he carries me past the threshold of the house he shares with his parents—we share with his parents. 

It is modest, decorated with crosses on the wall and an image of Jesus side-by-side with a photo of Pope Pius XII, but it smells like a home well-lived in. Like the charred bits of a tortilla on the comal and fresh comino from the molcajete dropped into arroz con Pollo.

After he sets me down, he presents me with what looks like a few stalks of thorny bamboo. “This is not a gift to mark our wedding, but instead it is an extension of my vows to you.”

“Is this. . . a money tree? For prosperity in our new life?” I search his eyes for the answer but only find a wide grin.

“No, no, mi amor,” he pulls me into an embrace. “This is a rose bush. It may not look like much now, but these yellow roses will surprise you. Like our love, if you nurture it, it will bloom.” He plants a kiss on my forehead. “And bloom.” Then, my cheek. “And bloom.” Then, my waiting lips. “And bloom.”

I return his kisses with a smile, not the least bit concerned about tomorrow.  

A simple life, two working eyes between us. That’s all I ask de Dios. He doesn’t have to take me away from the tortilla factory, from the fields I’ve tended, or from the river that murdered my brother. I see myself content in this life in the strong arms of a man who has promised me everything he can, nurturing an ever-lasting rose bush and a house full of children who will never have to carry our struggle on their tongues.

by Daniella Navarro